Removing Vines from House: Tips

Learn how to remove clinging vines from a house. Find out why you should not use a pressure washer, and begin with a Roundup weed killing product.

LESLIE: If you’re in Washington like Margaret you can find The Money Pit on KSBN. What can we do for you today?

MARGARET: What I need to know is what kind of a process do I need to go through to take vines off[1] of a front of a house. And they’re around quite an area. And the (inaudible).

TOM: Well, there’s a couple of things that you need to do. First of all, if it’s very thick it’s probably a good idea to spray it with a product like Roundup[2] first. Because that’s going to kill it and make it wither around and sort of release …

LESLIE: Well, it’ll also dry up its grip that it’s got on it.

TOM: Yeah, because those grips are really, really strong. And then once you – then when you spray that on you’re going to have to wait a couple of weeks and then you pull it down. It comes down quite easily. Then once you have it down then you could really start to dig out the root area around the bottom of the foundation where it’s starting to really get its water. And if you hit those areas I think that you’ll clean it up quite nicely. You don’t want to use anything like a pressure washer or something like that strong because you’re apt to damage it. I think if you spray it with Roundup, pull it off – if there’s any vines that are still sort of stuck on there, just like the little fingers of the vine, you could brush that off with a wire brush.